“And you,” she asked, “what are you? you are assuredly a Frenchman?”
“Yes—I am a Frenchman.”
“And yet your back is turned,” said Mademoiselle Brun, “towards the Prussians.”
“I am a writer,” explained the man—“a journalist. It is my duty to go to some safe place and write of all that I have seen.”
“Ah!” said Mademoiselle Brun. “Let us, my friend,” she said, turning to her companion on the forage-cart, “proceed towards Sedan. We are fortunately not in the position of monsieur.”
CHAPTER XIX. THE SEARCH.
“Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.”
There were many who thought the war was over that rainy morning after the fall of Sedan. For events were made to follow each other quickly by those three sleepless men who moved kings and emperors and armies at their will. Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon must have slept but little—if they closed their eyes at all—between the evening of the first and the morning of the third day of September. For human foresight must have its limits, and the German leaders could hardly have dreamt, in their most optimistic moments, of the triumph that awaited them. Bismarck could hardly have foreseen that he should have to provide for an imperial prisoner. Moltke's marvellous plans of campaign could scarcely have embraced the details necessary to the immediate disposal of ninety thousand prisoners of war, with many guns and horses and much ammunition.